Monthly Archives: October 2010

In a recent post, I was examining whether OpenStreetMap is a suitable place for open governmental geodata by cross-checking if the OpenStreetMap is compliant with the ten principles for open data. Out of the ten principles, nine can be considered compliant and one non-compliant. Meanwhile, I have discussed this topic with a wide range of people and read many articles. However, I have not yet found any place that would be perfect for open governmental geodata, not with ESRI or elsewhere.

In addition to the ten principles, another requirement emerged that was almost always stated by the authorities that look for publishing data: The data should not only be available for download in a machine-readable format, but a user should also be able to visualise the data. Finally, I came up with a solution that fulfills all of the requirements: publishing the geodata through the OpenStreetMap tool chain under a public domain licence. This would not only fulfill all of the requirements, but also offer some additional advantages.

What would this look like?

The OpenStreetMap tool chain is the underlying software that is used to store, edit and display the OpenStreetMap data – independent from the data licence. The default tool chain is open-source software that is free of charge and has been thoroughly tested by the more than 300.000 registered users.

The tool chain can be established with a blank database that serves as a target for the authority’s dataset, which is intended to be opened. It can be run by any hosting provider. When the tool chain is set up, the authority can import its data into the empty database and then release it under a data licence of its choice.

The infrastructure enables a machine-readable download of the data, displaying the data on the Web or accessing it through the API of the tool chain.

What are the additional advantages?

The authority can publish the dataset by making use of the OpenStreetMap infrastructure without being bound to the OpenStreetMap licence. As the tool chain is free of charge, costs apply only for establishing and running the infrastructure.

In addition, a dataset that is published through the OpenStreetMap tool chain can be easily imported into the OpenStreetMap data so that the OpenStreetMap community can benefit from the data.

The authority also has the option to make their data available in a read-only or editable form. In the case of the latter, everyone who can edit the OpenStreetMap data is also able to edit the authority’s data, as editors such as JOSM or Potlatch would be fully functional on the authority’s dataset.

Who can help?

In principle, everyone who is involved with OpenStreetMap can assist. A handful of companies exist that are in position to establish such an infrastructure, provide guidance and import the dataset into a “blank OpenStreetMap database”. The selection process for the right integration partner could be performed by a tender process. However, the company that is probably most suitable is Geofabrik in Karlsruhe, Germany. The company has several years of experience with the tool chain and it knows how to convert and import datasets of any format.

I have always loved working with transit data. It is so similar to road data like TIGER or OSM that we work with so often, but at the same time it is so much different. While a road network stays the same throughout time, a transit network can change depending on the time of day, or day of the week. This makes working with transit data a much more difficult problem than working with street data, in fact transit networks generally include street networks within them!

Services on top of transit data are somewhat more rare than road network services. Google has had Google Transit for several years now and is slowly expanding to include more cities. Microsoft recently added transit data for a few cities to Bing Maps. These services are great, I honestly don’t think I would be capable of using transit anymore without Google Transit on my iPhone, but what about the data?

Google has opened the General Transit Feed Specification interchange format they use to load data from transit companies into their system, and there are some efforts to make public GTFS data easyto get, as well as a number of very powerful tools that can suck in a GTFS dataset along with an Open Street Map road network for analysis and routing (BTW, GTFS is just a standard schema represented in CSV files, so working with it in FME is very easy too – kudos to Michael Grant of BC Transit who had a great presentation on this topic last week).

Transiki is a new project from Steve Coast (yes, the same Steve Coast who started OpenStreetMap) to bring the OSM model to transit data. Steve says he had the idea when Google Transit failed him, leaving him on a platform waiting for a train that did not exist, except in Google’s datasets. With Transiki, Steve may still have been stranded, but at least he could update the dataset to prevent others from being in the same situation. A wiki-esque transit network could also bring the real-time transit data in The Bay Area or Portland to other cities through a Waze like application. The uses for a large, free transit data network are almost limitless.

Will Transiki prove to be the answer to all of our transit woes? The short answer is nobody knows for certain. As with all crowdsourcing initiatives, only time will tell if the support from the community remains and grows. Given the huge success of OpenStreetMap, I am excited and hopeful. To get involved with Transiki, come join me on the mailing list!

Where do you stay when you travel? Sometimes we stay with friends and family and we already have those places mapped. What about hotels, motels, hostels, camp grounds and caravan parks bed and breakfasts and guest houses? When we map at home, these amenities for visitors can be invisible to us. Let’s turn that around and map the places for visitors in our towns.

Where do people stay when they visit your town? Find out how to add these features to the map on the OpenStreetMap wiki page for this Project of the Month.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/2010/Oct_27

This is the a Project of the Month. Project of the Week returns next week, while PotM will continue until December. These projects inspire mappers to contribute data they might not have considered previously, and allow us to be inspired by the projects of other mappers.

This is your Project of the Month. Make suggestions. Inspire other mappers. What is it about contributing to OpenStreetMap that interests you? Postboxes? Bowing alleys? Share your OpenStreetMap obession by contributing a Project of the Month.

We saw these maps a few weeks ago, and now they have been recognized as Image of the Week. As described by the creators at Axismaps:

These unique maps of Chicago and Boston accurately depict the streets and highways, parks, neighborhoods, coastlines, and physical features of the city using nothing but type. Only by manually weaving together thousands upon thousands of carefully placed words does the full picture of the city emerge. Prints are available.

Very nice, and perhaps these are just the gift for your favourite mapper, once you have already picked up a copy of each of the new OSM books for them, of course.

OpenStreetMap contributor Toby Murray has had a look at OSM data in Kansas, with an eye towards roads un-edited, towards automated edits and towards the upcoming census. What did he find? In part, he found that he is making a difference.

There are 105 counties in Kansas. 104 of them still have have 78% of their TIGER data in its original state. One has had 75% of it modified. Yes, this is the county I live in. Yes, most of it was done by me. Yes, this inflates my ego.

Share with Toby, the joy he takes in seeing the results of his participation in OpenStreetMap and read his article on his newly minted blog.

There has been a lot of buzz regarding OpenStreetMap during the last days e.g. here or here. However, I learned from several people that they did not understand why interest in OpenStreetMap has increased e.g. here. I thought it is time to visualize some of the recent map development. ITO has done some very nice visualization on OpenStreetMap but I thought a time lapse video on the evolution of the map is missing. Just watch the video for the European map and see if the buzz is justified.

Muki Haklay, senior lecturer in GIS at University College, London has published another academic study of OpenStreetMap data quality. In this paper, Professor Haklay shows that Linus’ Law applies to OpenStreetMap. Linus’ Law states

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow

as applied to OpenStreetMap. Professor Haklay shows how positional accuracy improves with more data contributors per square kilometer. Read his entire article

The State of the Map (SotM) organizing committee announce Denver, Colorado, USA as the winning bid for the 2011 International conference for OpenStreetMap (OSM). The annual event will be hosted in September 2011.

There were five proposals to host the annual spectacular event: Vienna, Austria, Havana, Cuba, Denver, Colorado (USA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Tallinn, Estonia. “Deciding on the best location for State of the Map is always one of our biggest and toughest decisions.” says Henk Hoff, chairman of the SotM organizing committee. Among the deciding factors were location, experience of the local committee and outreach potential to new communities.

“Denver is a clear choice because after four great years in Europe, it’s time to branch out and engage with other international communities.” commented Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap. 2011 will host the fifth annual international conference, attracting over 250 people in attendance. Sponsorship details, volunteer opportunities and more information will be available in the near future.

The State of the Map (SotM) organizing committee announce Denver, Colorado, USA as the winning bid for the 2011 International conference for OpenStreetMap (OSM). The annual event will be hosted in September 2011.

There were five proposals to host the annual spectacular event: Vienna, Austria, Havana, Cuba, Denver, Colorado (USA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Tallinn, Estonia. “Deciding on the best location for State of the Map is always one of our biggest and toughest decisions.” says Henk Hoff, chairman of the SotM organizing committee. Among the deciding factors were location, experience of the local committee and outreach potential to new communities.

“Denver is a clear choice because after four great years in Europe, it’s time to branch out and engage with other international communities.” commented Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap. 2011 will host the fifth annual international conference, attracting over 250 people in attendance. Sponsorship details, volunteer opportunities and more information will be available in the near future.